After being a healthy scratch for the first two rounds of the playoffs, the rookie forward made up for lost time with a goal and an assist in Game 1, then doubled that with four more points in Game 2 as he stepped into the lineup with Patrice Bergeron sidelined with a concussion.
Those performances kept Seguin in the lineup even when Bergeron returned in Game 3, but he didn't have a point in either game in Tampa. It was unrealistic to believe Seguin could keep up that kind of pace, especially after he had just one goal in his last 20 games in the regular season. But he did have three shots on goal in each game in Tampa to remain at least a threat offensively, albeit while being a minus-2 in Saturday's 5-3 loss.
So how have the Lightning adjusted to contain the speedy youngster? Neither team sees much difference in Tampa's approach, other than an awareness of his speed and skill that may have been lacking a bit before seeing it firsthand in those first two games.
"I don't think they made any adjustments," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "I don't think their game's changed. They're just aware when he's on the ice. I think that's what you do when a player does a lot of good things. You say, 'Listen, we've got to be aware when he's out there.' And it's as simple as that."
Tampa coach Guy Boucher agreed, noting that he doesn't believe in focusing on shutting down individual players. He prefers his players to play team defense instead, with a system than looks to eliminate all threats.
"I'll be honest with you, we felt he's played really well," Boucher said of Seguin. "But if you're going to focus on him, then you're not going to focus on the other guys, and they're the ones that are going to get you. So the reality is there's too many good players on that team. They've got a terrific team with a lot of guys who can make the difference. So if you start focusing on one guy in particular, you're going to focus on the wrong thing.
"We're aware he's got speed," Boucher added. "And the rest, we play them like we play everybody else."
Julien did acknowledge that without the last change on the road, it was harder to get Seguin out opposite lines that he could best utilize his speed against.
"Tyler really played well here the first two games," Julien said. "He certainly didn't play bad in Tampa, but he didn't have the same impact. And that's what happens when you're on the road. You don't have that last change in different situations. It's a lot tougher for everybody."
Boucher, however, denied trying to match lines to shut down Seguin or any other specific players, instead trusting all his lines to be defensively responsible.
"You got [David] Krejci on the ice, if you just focus on him, [Milan] Lucic is going to score and [Nathan] Horton is going to score," Boucher said. "So we did the same thing with Washington. If you just focus on [Alex] Ovechkin, the other guys would have done the job. So it's a real team thing. It's always been our attitude, and it's everybody's job to play against anybody that's in front of them.
"Sometimes we match, but most of the time we trust our fourth-line, third-line guys to do the job," Boucher added. "I think that's one of the reasons why today they're helping us offensively too, is that they were allowed to score goals during the year, they're allowed to think that they can get on the third and second and first line when they play better than the first- and second-liners. So whether we play against Seguin that's playing really well or other guys, it's a team defense that we've played all year long. So we're not going to change that."
The Bruins just have to hope they can get all of their lines going at once, and the better balance they have now with Bergeron back and Seguin clicking with Michael Ryder and Chris Kelly on the third line will be too much for even Tampa's tight defensive system to contain.
